Do not look at the glass, of you will fall in love with it and you will never be able to let it go

June 23, 2017

On the occasion of the beautifull ‘the glass’ exhibition at Le Stanze del Vetro, featuring over 220 Ettore Sottsass's pieces - many of which are presented for the first time - we want to look at Murano glass story from a quite directional prospective.

We will talk about the contamination between Venetian glass-making and art

Murano glass story is very long, and till now it has been impossible to establish precisely when the Venice glass making industry first began. And very recently some ceramic fragments certainly dating from between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th century were brought to light.

But is the 1900 is the moment when everything changes, the period when Murano glass found its way to innovation, and when the companies with more acumen began working with artists and designers and artists.

Off course we love Paolo Venini and we can’t resist to the beauty of the pieces from his furnace, but the pieces we want to show you today have been selected from other designers. Some of them are very famous, but possibly you didn’t know they experimented with Murano glass. Others are maybe less well know outside Venice, but we find what they did just amazing.

ETTORE SOTTSASS

He established working relationships with the famous glass makers on the venetian island of murano during the 1940s, showed a few glass works at the 1948 biennale, and continued working with the city’s craftsmen over the following decades, producing murano glass pieces under the aegis of his memphis group during the 1980s.

‘I’ve tried to get away from the everyday object and sought to make Glass works with a capital G. of course, that’s a dangerous approach, because I don’t want to be an artist, or a sculptor, but in the end the objects I produce look like glass sculptures, and yet they aren’t: they’re a mix that’s hard to fathom’ Ettore Sottsass

The exhibition will run on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice from 10th April to 30th July 2017. It will be the first exhibition ever entirely dedicated to the glass and crystal production of the Italian designer.

DINO MARTENS

(1894–1970) was an Italian painter and designer particularly noted for his glass work trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti. He had his paintings exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1924–1930) and after his return from Italy's African wars became the artistic director of Aureliano Toso (the famous Venetian glass works).

THOMAS STEARNS

(1936-2006) was the first American to design at Murano for Paolo Venini from 1959 to 1961 on Fulbright Travel Grant. He came from Cranbrook Academy, and showed up in Murano with new ideas, and no knowledge of the Italian language.

FULVIO BIANCONI

One of the most famous post-war Italian graphic designers, Fulvio Bianconi began his career learning the art of decorating glass at the workshops of Murano under the directorship of Michael Pinto. Where he returned later in life to begin his fruitful product design career and establish Murano as the place for production of artistic glass around the globe. Before his innovations, glass had been used for utilitarian purposes.

FRATELLI TOSO

Fratelli Toso was of the first glass factories to recover technique of traditional murrina production toward the end of the '800 and it has always been one of the best in murrina manufacturing.

GINO CENEDESE

its products covered the traditional range of Murano blown glass (plates, vases, bowls, wineglasses and lamps), on the other the company opened up to contemporary art, establishing close links with the artists of the period.

LUCIO FONTANA

Lucio Fontana, Italio-Argentine painter, sculptor and theorist of Argentine birth, he is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism and his ties to Arte Povera. But very few knows he experimented with Murano glass as well

PABLO PICASSO

JEAN ARP

Best-known for his biomorphic sculptures, and one of the most versatile creative minds of the early twentieth century, he fashioned sculptures out of plaster, stone and bronze, and also expressed himself in paintings, drawings, collages, poems, and Murano glass sculptures as well

ALEXANDER CALDER

CARLO SCARPA

Carlo Scarpa (1906 – 1978), was an Italian architect, influenced by the materials, landscape, and the history of Venetian culture, and Japan. Scarpa translated his interests in history, regionalism, invention, and the techniques of the artist and craftsman into ingenious glass and furniture design